The Dark Knight Rises – A Closer Look

Christopher Nolan has a chance to cement his Batman trilogy as the best superhero film franchise ever with his third and final installment The Dark Knight Rises, as well as one of the most successful trilogies ever. Lord knows everybody and their mom is looking forward to seeing this movie. What he’s done in his first two installments is create a realistic universe in which you believe Batman can actually exist, and he’s given us some of the most memorable comic book characters we’ve seen on screen. So what can we expect from The Dark Knight Rises? Let’s take a look.

What we know so far

Tom Hardy is Bane – If you’ve seen any photos of Tom Hardy on set or saw the teaser trailer, it’s clear that Tom Hardy has bulked up for the role. In the comics, Bane is a huge problem for Batman. He’s large and determined to kill Batman. What separates Bane from other villains is that he is not just a muscle-bound maniac (as depicted in Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin), he is also extremely intelligent. Bane has a serum he injects into himself, whenever the time calls for it, called “venom” which makes him even stronger, and it shows physically. This is something I think Christopher Nolan will change in the movie. I have a feeling that the venom serum will make an appearance, but not as something Bane can take as he pleases. My guess is that Nolan will have it serve as part of Bane’s backstory, where he is injected once and it is the cause for his incredible strength.

Bane’s most famous appearance in the comics happens in the Knightfall story arc, where he becomes determined to find out Batman’s identity and to ultimately beat him. To do this Bane destroys the walls of Arkham Asylum, setting free its deranged inmates, in order to keep Batman occupied while he finds out Batman’s identity. Once Bane discovers that Bruce Wayne is Batman, he ambushes an exhausted Batman at the Batcave, defeats him, and famously breaks his back, thus ending his career as Batman (for a while atleast). This is a scene in which many fans are expecting to see portrayed in the film.

Anne Hatheway is Selina Kyle (Catwoman) – In the comics, Selina Kyle was originally a prostitute who wants to break free from her pimp. After an incident involving her pimp, she starts to fear for her life so she begins to learn martial arts, allowing her to eventually quit her life as a prostitute. She winds up donning a costume in order to avoid being identified when she starts to rob small jewelry shops. She becomes a jewelry thief in a Robin Hood-esque way, where she plans on helping the less fortunate with her loot. After a confrontation with Batman during one of her heists, she becomes inspired to stay in her costume and become Catwoman. Selina gets the idea that if there can be a bat, why can’t there be a cat? She is not a hero nor a villain, but she dos a lot of good by doing conventionally bad things like looting. In the comics she has also had many romantic encounters with Batman.

I don’t expect too much to change in Nolan’s version. The only fear I have is that Anne Hatheway looks absolutely ridiculous in her outfit from what we’ve seen so far. It’s something that could break the movie if she really looks as bad the leaked set photos have shown (click here to see what the fuss is all about). For some reason, her stunt double actually pulls the suit off. Some are saying that she was not a good choice for the role, but the main problems we’re seeing are with her costume, which is out of her control. She just doesn’t look sexy, which is a large part of Catwoman’s character. I hope I’m wrong, and I probably am – when I first heard that Heath Ledger was going to be The Joker I was disappointed, once I saw some productions shots, and eventually the movie, I saw how wrong I was. But compared to how great Tom Hardy looks as Bane, these images of Anne Hatheway are severely disappointing. All we can do is hope for the best, and I’ve learned to trust Nolan with any of his decisions.

Wayne Manor is rebuilt – In Batman Begins Ra’s al Ghul and his men destroy Wayne Manor. In The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne is using an underground warehouse as his base of operations. Well, reports have surfaced that Wayne Manor is rebuilt, and leaked pictures online show that there has been major work done in…

The Batcave – In Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne discovers a cave under his house that we all knew would eventually become to Batcave. Well, it has finally arrived and we will see it in this film.

The Batmobile is back! – The Tumbler is Nolan’s version of the Batmobile. It was introduced in Batman Begins as a scrapped military project called the Tumbler. In The Dark Knight the Tumbler is destroyed. There have been many pictures of the Tumbler on set for The Dark Knight Rises floating around on the web, many Tumblers actually…

The Batpod returns – The Batpod is the motorcycle-like vehicle Batman rides around in The Dark Knight after detaching it from the Tumbler before it blows up. From the photos we’ve seen of The Dark Knight Rises, there are shots of Catwoman driving around in what appears to be the Batpod. How she gets a hold of it is what we are waiting to see.

The Batwing makes its debut – Yup, you read this right. The Batwing will make its debut in The Dark Knight Rises. From the photos we’ve seen, it is very Tumbler-esque and looks to fit in well with Nolan’s universe.

So that’s what we do know for The Dark Knight Rises. Now let’s take a look at what we don’t know…

7 Comments

Dude… Liam Neeson was always Ra’s in the first movie. He told Bruce the other man was Ra’s in order to observe and befriend him without Bruce knowing he was the head honcho. I gather it was to size him up and figure out if he was right for the task ahead. It makes sense that it would be a title passed on, making the man essentially ‘immortal’ but that’s not what was implied in Batman Begins. It was implied that Ra’s deceived Bruce.

We don’t really know for sure if Liam Neeson’s character was Ra’s the entire time or if he was the successor. The hint at both of these near the end of the film. IMDb lists Ken Watanabe as Ra’s and it is pretty clear that he is the leader of the clan early on in Batman Begins. Anyways, I simply chose to go with what I thought was the most believable choice.